Best

LJ

Best

LJ

Best

LJ

We love darling Charley, pet shop pickin's;
Full of mischief, a real little Dickens!
Tawny fur that is pale,
With a long, pretty tail...
And he's good at taking Purrsia's lickin's!

[Purrsia is the older cat in our house] OK. Frivolity's over. On to Hard Times! See you all Monday!

Dickens' genius in HT is so real without being realistic.

Seriously, about children's attention span: I had my son's first grade teacher tell me, let' see--that would be 36 years ago, the same thing you are saying. The children couldn't concentrate unless they were being entertained! TV has to be the culprit--my kids were raised on it. They turned out pretty good; I did limit the tube some. But who knows how much BETTER they might have turned out?!?

And question 4[above], no one else seems to have commented on... I think one does "know" Louisa as the more intelligent and adventuresome of the two children here. Thomas is fitting into his father's mold, already. And Dickens manages to convey these children's characters so quickly! Let it be known, though, that I HAVE already read thru' chapter 9. Let's compare, too, the character of Sissy Jupe to Gradgrind's children...

My life in the boarding house started when I was three. Unfortunately, the hockey players were gone by the time I was thirteen. We had one bathroom!!! and only three bedrooms. It was a circus and I loved every minute of it. The players treated my brother and I like their siblings and spoiled us to death. Now to the book, I thought the name Gradgrind so appropiate to today's curriculum at most of the schools. That's an apt description of the schools' aim. Just pass them through and out the door! My grandson just graduated from an Alternative Public School in New York and it is much smaller (30 kids in his senior class) plus the children are taught from day one(start in kindergarten) that they must live with the desicions that they make in the way of what classes they choose to take. They are required to have community service records plus a senior project. The graduation was a presentation of each student by a teacher plus a display of their projects. Some of the students' project were quite different and they were presented onstage. Singing, dancing, instrument playing, clothes designing were just some of the accomplishments of these very interesting children. The stationary projects included instrument building, business startups, canoe restoration, photography, ceramics etc,etc. It was a very thought provoking graduation night. Two of the girls have already been published and one young man (who was supposed to have learning problems) had not only started a business but had presented his business program to other students in California and NYC. Three of the boys have performed onstage in NYC and two have already cut CD's, one with music and the other with a comedy act. 95% of these kids are already enrolled in college and 85% usually graduate from college.

Welcome back, Ginny! Where will you be posting a synopsis of your Italian adventure? Or is to come out here and there?!?

I grew up during WW2--first grade in 1940. My father enlisted even tho' he was over 30, married with children [namely me], and employed. THIS act affected MY life for several years, as we moved from pillar to post keeping up with his assorted transfers. My education was 6 months here, 1 year there, [even home-taught for 1 year] until I hit Junior High School. Mostly school bored me except for the social aspects [!]. I'll vote for fact AND fancy in balance suitable to the child, in combination with plenty of doable challenges, also geared to the child as much as possible. I have always thought, even for slower learners, that schools waste an incredible amount of time. Does it really take 12 years to learn the stuff needed for a so-called basic education? Comments anyone?

Having grown up in the 40's & 50's, and having had fast leaners in my family, I'm sure that the main objective for schools, should be teaching them how to look for information and how to digest that information. I believe in the learning of the math tables and some memorizing of different media, just to help a person organize their thoughts. But, oh, how I love the dreamers, too. I feel that TV is ruining our minds by feeding us everything without requiring thought. I am a radio freak and always have been. Gives me the chance to use my imagination and also I can ignore it if I want to. Its a different world, with all the techology, and I am glad that I grew up when I did.

BUT !!!!!! I love my computer and knowing all the seniornetters plus my other puter buddies and all the info that comes to me through it! And I was one of those that would never use a bank ATM card, way back when!

Best

LJ

Apropos of earlier discussion here, don't you people think there are lots more "dumb" kids than there were when we were young? Kids clerking in stores these days can't even make change without the register telling them what it is! And don't you think the reason is not that there's something in the water but that the schools just aren't teaching them as well?!?!?

"Dickens would have been greater with more formal education."

Have any of you ever come across one of these articles in the media in which labels are placed on the different generations? Ours--born in the late 20s-early 30s--has been dubbed the "Silent Generation" and it's been pointed out that no U.S. president has come from this group. No one to my knowledge has offered any reason why this should be. Thought-provoking, though, isn't it?!?

Perhaps the three R's including phonics and math table would help but the installing of the love of learning and searching for the meaning of life is an art. I believe it takes good teachers but most important dedicated parents.

Remember teaching your preschoolers how to go to the library? Just because you wanted them to like reading as much as you did. Remember choosing books together to read aloud on returning home? In the good old summertime!! Everyone choosing a book to take to the pool for reading after lunch before Mom announced that it was safe for you to return to swimming without cramps? Reading aloud after the nightly bath before bedtime? That can still be done! Turn off the TV!

Best

LJ

At the time when the Taylors flourished there was certainly an abundance of lit for kiddies designed to amuse and, simultaneously, educate them. ( Were this a discussion of educational theory rather than of literature I could supply plenty of examples of Gradgrindism in today's schools.) We need to keep in mind, don't we, that free public education as we know it hardly existed. And when parents are paying even a little bit for schooling, don't they want to think they're getting something useful, don't they like to hear their kids recite facts, don't they want the school to concentrate on their own values rather than introducing some dangerous new idea nobody's heard about? But don't let me get started.

Ros

In this week's chapters, describing the "People" of Coketown, I was impressed with the ultimate inclusion of Drug Addicts. The evils of addiction were less well appreciated in that era, but a classic piece of English Literature is worthy of mention at this juncture, i.e. Thos DeQuincy's "Confessions of an English Opium Eater"

Best

LJ

I will accept the label of "utilitarianist" as that is surely what I am by Katie's definition! I fiddled around with a Fine Arts curriculum in college, only getting some practical stuff in toward the end [I WAS 34 when I finally graduated!]. I encouraged my children to take a practical approach from the beginning as I thought then and think now that liking your chosen work in life is probably the one most important key to happiness. My son fooled around a couple years, finally settled down to finishing his education in a profession. He's 43 now and has worked in that profession nearly 20 years, stepping into a job right out of school! He's happy by nature but I like to think happier because of enjoying his work. By comparison, I was only able to find work in a field totally unrelated to art by virtue of "having a college degree." [They accepted any degree!] Advancement came and I ended up in a pretty good spot but only because of the knack for writing assisted by that one college course I mentioned earlier, "Informative Writing." [P.S. I hated my job.] My daughter is dead now. She had fiddled around and not even finished college. She knocked around a few years, ended up getting a really good job by lying about her experience, then doing such a bang-up job that she was selected for special [practical] training! An artist by talent and temperament, she found her niche teaching a special skill [computer aided design] to others!

I especially sympathize with and agree with Riel who points out that those without professional training or education end up unable to even leave home these days, as "McJobs" [I love it!] just don't support anyone. These aren't "real" jobs in the sense of making one self-sufficient financially or emotionally. They are "filler" jobs for kids to earn allowance money, to help put themselves through school, to supplement another income in a household, etc. No one can take them seriously but they do serve their purpose.

The essay on Dickens' education arrived here at a timely moment! It seems apparent that Dickens could have been a better writer, more properly educated and all; but to what detriment of his passion and baser knowledge of the lower classes! Let's not forget practical matters--Dickens was earning a living! Also a powerful motivator--<VBG>--on that note I will end for today and thank you all for "listening."

On the other hand, Latin may have confused his appreciation for Grammer as it has done for those thousands who think the verbal noun is a "Gerund". (A quick dictionary consultation will show that the "Gerund" is a "Verbal Noun" in Latin (as distinguished from English).

I admit to an affinity for the classical languages (Latin, Greek and Hebrew) Perhaps that would suggest that I tend to be a dilletante but: "Accusere Nemo se dixit, nisi coram Deo"

Best

LJ

Who is Mr. Bounderby? Where is Ma Gradgrind? Have saved your posts for first thing tomorrow morning, Marge and LJ
I can't wait!

LJ, three questions for you this morning...
I confess I remember a gerund to be verb form used as a noun...can you clarify your comment? Is this a Latin concept?


'Accusere nemo...'? To find fault with noone is to tell oneself, I am in the presence of God? Don't laugh! Please correct me! Where's Ginny!!!


I would be very interested to hear your views regarding the education of young Bart, before you embark on your summer adventure. Has he started school yet? Would love to hear your take on his early education. Also your position regarding a young child's imagination. Do you regard it with a sense of wonder, as Dickens' would have done? Do you feel inclined to nourish it with 'fairy tale'? Or are you inclined to set him on the path of clear thinking, clarifying his 'misconceptions'. I am really curious about this, as it is at the heart of the debate going on as Dickens' wrote this novel.


kathleen you bring up so many good questions - I will add them to the list immediately. Back in a few minutes...better go walk the little red dog first!

Joan

"Accusere nemo se dixit, nisi coram Deo", properly translated means, "No man is required to accuse himself, except before (in the presence of) God."

Now, as for Bart. We teach him that there are no such things as "Ghosts", but we don't deny him a spiritual concept. We DO NOT threaten him with a "God" concept. While not being critical of the popular well known deity, we just avoid "Pseude-reverence". Biblical myths and legends are good "Fairy-Tales" as object lessons. (There's nothing wrong with "The Golden Rule"), but we Don't promulgate anything or anybody for him either to worship or blame for the events in life.

Best

LJ

'...she stood on the same spot, rubbing the cheek he had kissed, with her handkerchief, until it was burning red. She was still doing this, five minutes afterwards.'

I feel it's important to remember that Dickens was a caricaturist, and in Hard Times he used some of his broadest strokes, so it might be stretching a bit to see any of his female characters as truly representing average women. However, as I think about some of the other Dickens women, it occurs to me that wives-and-mothers were often sketched with negative characteristics, while most of the strong and admirable females were unburdened with domestic bliss.

Of course, one of the dangers of knowing too much about artists is that it becomes difficult to separate the human from the artistic persona.

Jeryn, I read Joan and Peter years ago and remember nothing except the title and the fact that it was about some kind of "progressive" education. Glad you reminded me -- now if I see it in my favorite used-book store I might pick it up and tackle it again.

Ros

Fun! I can't believe you did it!!!

By the way, have you all noticed the "Charles Dickens' School Days" clickable up there over the "Complete Text" It is fascinating - written in 1874 by John Foster, who used to work with CD at the newspaper in 1836. A first hand account and you won't find anything more complete anywhere!!! (I don't think!) It describes his school days and gives an idea of the quality of his education...

Will come back after dinner to address your posts! I am so stunned to see my sister, I'm speechless!

Marge, please tell us about your funny Elderhostel experience...


Later!

Well, we can't throw out the baby,etc.

I guess that we have look at the times and the harsh way that children were thought of. Like so many little slaves! Unfortunately, there are still pockets of this attitude in many Third World countries today.

I am interested in what made us think that children should be used in factories for labor? Did we not value them as human beings? What was the mindset in that era? It prevailed here in the US, too, up through the first decade of this century. Amazing!

"Catherine was twenty when he met her. She had heavy-lidded eyes and a certain secretive beauty of languor that was perhaps bound to disappoint - as do so many women whose enigmatic, Mona Lisa similes disguise the comparative vapidity that lies behind them. Dickens' attentions, no doubt, drew her out further than he or she expected. she could be funny in an absurd, punning, unexpected way." ('somethingological?)
"Many factors told against the success of their marriage. Her family home was disorganized and untidy, features which were not going to be tolerated in Dickens' future plans for success

Victorian husbands did often expect complete authority over their wives I do not think that Dickens, given his temperament, was excessively severe; his tone is paternal rather than tyrannical."(Gradgrind?)
In a letter to Catherine from Genoa, Dickens' says, 'Keep things in their places. I can't bear to picture them otherwise' ...and this is characteristic of the dictatorial mania for orderliness of which he was well aware.

If there was one accident that he could not easily forgive his wife , it was the bearing of his children. From early on he had found the domestic upset of childbirth a trial in his overpacked, carefully-planned working life. later he saw each birth as another strain upon his money-earning energies: 'Mother and son blooming', he wrote of the arrival of his last child, 'though I am not so clear I wanted the later'. He came to adore his son; indeed he certainly loved his children deeply, especially when they were small. But this treatment of fertility as thought it were a purely feminine contribution to marriage is one of the most annoying features of his selfish masculinity.

I suspect that Catherine did not find it possible to live up to Dickens' meteoric career; I suspect that his masterful management of her did not help her to shine (and the regular neatness inspections which he made of his children's rooms probably served them less well.'"


"By 1855, I think, his marriage had become as irksome to him as much of the rest of his life." (Hard Times was published in 1854.)


Some things should be cleared up about Catherine's younger sister, Georgina, and her relationship with Dickens.

Wilson writes that Georgina (16) moved in with the Dickens to help Catherine, as her sister Mary had done early in the marriage. Georgina took over the management of the house and everything was as Dickens' had always wanted it to be. She stayed in that household for the rest of her life. Wilson tells us that although Dickens had other affairs, there was never a sexual relationship between the two.
Georgina's presence and success in getting the household in order only made Catherine more indolent. "By 1851 she suffered from some giddiness, probably of nervous origin, which cannot have been improved by the sudden death in London of her infant daughter, Dora."


By 1858, the marriage was over.


Now as Ros says, let's try not to let this biographical insert interfere with the story at hand...just let it give us an idea of what was going on in the house as Dickens was writing it.


See you all tonight - and will be looking forward to your posts.

Joan

I think that Ann is asking an important question, and will add it to the growing list above. What was the mindset of this era regarding children? How did they end up in factories like little "slaves"?

I scanned through looking for information about Dickens' marriage and family life, but the author seems to intertwine his life with his novels and there is no easy section to highlight. If you are so inclined, you may reach the whole biography through the Schoolboy clickable above. Personally, I feel that Angus Wilson provided all the information we really need here...


Kay, I missed the fact that the family kept a maidservant even while in debtor's prison!!! While their son was working in the blacking factory!!!?


Technology! Yesterday Kay made her way in here for the first time, then emailed her son in Key West and he emailed her back telling her just where on his bookshelf she would find Hard Times...and today she's here, chatting with us as comfortable as can be...

My sister is a cat person, (I'm the dog). Always. (Did you notice the cat up in the heading, Kay? That's Jeryn's cat, our mascot, "Charley Dickens")


Later!

I am once again aghast at the attitude toward children but as you say, Gradgrind seems to have good intentions. Its just so different from the way we are now.

I enjoy the biographical notes and as we all know , its very hard for some authors not include their private angst somewhere in their works. Aren't there only 12(or some small number) plots with variations available to any of those who write? I seem to remember a writer friend of mine saying that. Its just life with a variation on the theme, after all.

I am beginning to study the charter schools approach here in Ohio and think they are one answer to our problems. Also the one gender schools. One for troubled boys in Chicago and the girls school in NYC. We should be trying whatever works and our public schools are sadly lacking.

Did anyone read the newspaper article concerning the teacher testing in the East where the 60% of the teachers failed on how to teach math and english?

Concerning practical vs. fluff [can you tell where my sentiments lie?] courses in secondary school--there's room for both. Don't they still have electives?

So Bounderby is the "intended" husband for Louisa. Seems obvious now that you point it out to me! Let's hope she figures out a way to avoid that!

" In the 16th century children were referred to as 'my son , my daughter or...'the child'. When a more abstract term was employed, this was either 'comfort', 'benefit', or 'blessing'.
In the next century, children were still 'comforts' and 'blessings', also 'lambs', 'flowers'...
In the 18th century, children were 'joys', 'pleasures', 'delights, in addition to "flowers 'blessings', 'plants', 'cares' and 'incumbrances'...
In the 19th century children were referred to as 'lambs','chicks, 'pets', 'froglike', 'a plague' and 'trying'

"If he had only learnt a little less, how infinitely better he might have taught much more!"

I agree that he was educated to teach the facts but was also pointing out that the list of his education did include the arts. I believe that it was Gradgrinds goal not to teach anything of fancy. Also liked Dickens description of the teachers school.

Jo

I, too, graduated from an all girls high school and we had two tracks offered to us. College or commercial. I just attended our reunion and still find my old classmates interested in learning which is the point of education,to me. My interest in the charter schools probably comes from my grandchildren's schooling. They seem to have honed in on careers to follow but they are young and can change their minds. I had an interesting gabfest with the oldest one, she is pursuing a degree in elementery ed, and she seems to think that we have taken childhood away from our children and substituted with daycare and tv. The influence of parents is still the most important to her and when both parents must work, it falls to someone else to give the children values. I think we have more than our schools to change. Technology has put too much on our plates. Parents are distracted and fractured by all of the offerings. Maybe we could rid ourselves of the advertising world which tells us that we need so many things,things, things!

Best

LJ

As Sleary says in Chapter VI (without the lisp), people must be amused somehow. They can't be always a working,...a learning."
By the way, Charlotte, you were accepted into this 'group', looong before you started the discussion! (Charlotte's life was changed with that English major and Art History minor.)


Is it safe to say that most of us benefited from an exposure in school to a source of enjoyment where our spirit and imaginations could expand...at a time when TV was a novelty, rather than the prime source of amusement and entertainment?

As the emphasis in schools moves toward stressing the basics, and time and resources for the Arts decrease, what happens to this generation of children? It would seem that the home, the parents must provide the child's exposure to sources of enjoyment and relaxation. As Ann's granddaughter and Jo point out, daycare and TV have taken over that role. What is the solution? Is there a solution?

Carly Rose (just seven)


What do you think Mr. Gradgrind and Mr. Mc'Chokumchild would say about this paper? What do you think of it? Just curious...

No, I did mention that the scene in the little room upstairs from the bar reminded me of Les Miserables so thought this would make a good play. But Dickens has already been accomplished with Oliver. I believe that similar times were written about in R.F. Delderfield's book, "Theirs Was The Kingdom" and also in the movie "How Green Was My Valley" which covered the mining towns in Wales and the miner's families trying to have a little power over their lives.

I love the Sleary part, expecially where he says that we all need a little entertainment in our lives. What do we offer now? Bingo? Egad! Worse than TV!

I think maybe the comparison to Liza fits when you speak of Sissy.

I am not voting on Ullysses yet. Have to think about that! Its been a long time since I read a part of it and didn't finish but I was younger and busier then. Might enjoy the challenge now.

Norma, I like the Eliza Doolittle concept! But does Gradgrind plan to raise Sissy to become a 'fair lady'? Or does he plan for her to work as a grateful servant girl in exchange for her education? It seems to me that the whole Gradgrind education is experimental. Louisa is being trained to become a scientist, is that right? The scientific method is the backbone of this education, isn't it? Gradgrind is educating his daughters as his sons. Wasn't this unusual for Dickens' time? Gradgrind wants even more girls for his school, which is why Mrs. G. took in Sissy. Does he look for more girls to broaden the field of his experiment, or to keep Louisa company? Both?

Why is it okay now to take Sissy back to the school? Is she no longer a corruptive influence? I agree with Norma, Gradgrind believes that once she is removed from the horseriding environment, she will no longer be a threat...she will become a totally different person with education.


Norma, we will be thinking of you, reading Hard Times during jury duty! (?)


Marge, who is trying to "petition Parliament to make these people religious by force"? Church members? Government officials? Social reformers?
Who belongs to the 18 religious denominations in Coketown, if not the working class? It seems from the description of the town so far that the majority of the inhabitants are workers. Are there enough 'others' for all these churches? Do the Gradgrinds belong to one of them?...to that big stucco one with the steeple? Are the Gradgrinds middle class? Bounderby upper class?


Jeryn, I don't know if Carly's paper is "pathetic" for a seven- year old. Do you refer to lack of imagination, or lack of spelling skills? I look at it as an attempt to get her to express herself in writing, before she learns the concepts of good writing...especially spelling. Is this the beginning of a life-time of bad writing habits, but confidence in self- expression? We need some teachers to chime in here...where's my sister?

Gradgrind/Mc'Chokeumchild wouldn't have let her write it, I am quite sure...

"Ain't it enough to break your heart?
Have to work all day and at night it's dark.
Hard Times in the mill..."

I,too,noticed that CD seems to have endowed the whole horserider group with the warmth of humanity. I think that the lisp endears Sleary to us and also his common sense. Makes him stand out which is CD's intent. His use of the name Cecelia instead of Sissy struck me as odd. I remembered that back at the Gradgrind school, Mr Gradgrind insisted that Sissy be called Cecelia when she referred to herself as Sissy. Not sure what this means. The lisp was hard to read but it seems to have accomplished its intent, since we will all remember this character. If he returns to the story, we will certainly remember most of what he said earlier.

I did see the Full Monty plus another English setting movie recently which was about the closing of a mill when coal was determined not as necessary as before. Can't remember the title but it was thought provoking. Retraining was not an option which brings up another whole set of subjects. My goodness, and we are only into Chapter V!

Ginny,

What a great post! Where did you find the info on the title? I am reading the John Forster biography but haven't gotten that far into it. Yes, it made me think of Tennessee Ernie Ford's recording of The Company Store. Shades of the mining towns here in the states.

I do think that the church references must play either a scene setting ploy for later or just a better way for the reader to picture the times. I bet the big church was the Church of England since it was the state church of choice. Also, I think that the churches were another form of distraction from their troubles for the millhands. As were the drugs and alcohol abuse. Seems to be the human condition in that town and many other towns. Still applies in these times. If you go into the hills of some of the states where the mines still exist, you find similar conditions.

Manchester or Birmingham? Not a lot of difference during those early years of the Industrial Revolution, I bet! It is sad that, all through history really, mind-numbing jobs such as work in mines, factories, and such have had to exist. Think of the poor blokes that had to build the pyramids!

I believe Sissy Jupe consents to leave her friends and go to be educated because she so firmly believes that is what her father would have wanted her to do. We know she loves him a lot and that he was bent on having her educated... Before her father disappeared, I think Gradgrind feared Jupe as a bad influence on his own daughter and even, perhaps, the other students. However, I think the father's disappearance activates Gradgrind's humanitarian instincts and he justifies his intentions to himself and the world by the explanations he gives.

Joan Pearson: First of all I want you to know my entire family has gotten a tremendous kick out of Charley D's "fame". What fun! We used to live next door to some people named Wharton. They had a lovely black cat named "Edith"!
Moving right along... about the 7-year-old who could not spell: yes, her poor writing habits are what I find depressing. Not all of us are equally gifted with spelling talent or creative talent. I guess encouraging either or both with such exercises would be worthwhile in spite of such unhappy results! I am most assuredly not a teacher but I have made my living writing and have great respect for the written word as well as a tendency to seek perfection in its execution. I was probably too hard on the 7-year-old. Good thing I am not a teacher!

Two other major problems are to be considered with reference to the Joyce work. First, there is the problem of critique of the established (especially Roman Catholic) Church. Second, are the heavily pervasive themes of sexuality, both normal and otherwise. throughout the novel.

It would be an absolute "Tour de Force", and I have misgivings about the extent of our members' willingness to participate, but the counterbalancing ambivailance is the fact that it rises "Head and Shoulders" above any other undertaking we might countenance.

I think we should consider it only if there is massive support for the project, but if it comes about, I'd certainly be a participant.

Best

LJ

The prophets of the time deplored the inroads of science upon religious faith; but the Church of England was revivified by the Oxford Movement; evangelical Protestantism was never stronger and more active; and the Roman Catholic Church was becoming an increasingly powerful religious force in England.

Already I like Mrs. Sparsit. Not necessarily her character, rather her entertainment value! I am not yet ready to judge whether she will be a likeable character--"one of the good guys!"

On to Chapter 9...

The schedule above can mean anything you want it to mean. You can read it all week, or talk about it all week...or just pop in now and then to see what others are saying...


Billy, tell us about your trip to Ireland! How did your speech go? Did you mention using the Internet in the classroom? Did you mention us?


Kay, when are you going to Ireland? Wouldn't it be fun to go search our roots?
I suspect Dickens will "flesh out" little Sissy as the story progresses, so that she will become more real. Most of his characters are served up when introduced. I find it a bit odd that he is taking his time with Sissy, letting her evolve...He does spend much time in Chapter IX on Louisa's interest in Sissy's relationship with her mother and father, as kathleen points out. Does he do this to demonstrate Louisa's awakening to another way of living?


Mrs. Sparsit's eyebrows continue to amuse! What are Coriolanian eyebrows?


I forgot CD described her as diabolical, Jo. hmmm.
She doesn't lose an opportunity to emphasize the fact that Louisa is a "little girl". Yes, she does suspect Bounderby's interest. Yes, I think she's jealous! Does she harbor feelings for Bounderby (tee hee), or does she fear losing her exalted position as lady of the house?


So far, she's my favorite character. Not so much because of what she says, but her gestures and facial expressions are hilarious! Remember she's only 39. Don't you get the feeling she's "one of us"?

She promises to be as memorable as Miss Haversham, kathleen.
You bring up some interesting points on education in England at the time. For the poor - and the middle class, the poorly educated teachers contribute to the poor quality of the schools. Education seems to be closely related to the church and the caste system. I found some relevant information while surfing and will excerpt some passages from the articles placed in the clickables up in the heading.


Back in a few minutes...

The late Mr Sparsit, being by the mother's side a Powler, married this lady, being by the father's side a Scadgers. Lady Scadgers (an immensely fat old woman, with an inordinate appetite for butcher's meat, and a mysterious leg which had now refused to get out of bed for fourteen years) contrived the marriage, at a period when Sparsit was just of age, and chiefly noticeable for a slender body, weakly supported on two long slim props, and surmounted by no head worth mentioning. He inherited a fair fortune from his uncle, but owed it all before he came into it, and spent it twice over immediately afterwards. Thus, when he died, at twenty-four (the scene of his decease, Calais, and the cause brandy), he did not leave his widow, from whom he had been separated soon after the honeymoon, in affluent circumstances. That bereaved lady, fifteen years older than he, fell presently at deadly feud with her only relative, Lady Scadgers; and, partly to spite her ladyship, and partly to maintain herself, went out at a salary. And here she was now, in her elderly days, with the Coriolanian style of nose and the dense black eyebrows which had captivated Sparsit, making Mr Bounderby's tea as he took his breakfast.

So the lady was 39 at the death of young Mr. Sparsit and we must learn how long she has presided at Bounderby's tea, to know the exact age of the elderly lady today. We do know the elderly great-aunt is still living and we know Mrs. Sparsit's eyebrows are still dense black!!! Interesting - it's her nose that is Corolanian here, not the eyebrows as in Chapter XII! Corolanian? Anyone?

True to the class or caste system of 19th century England, Dickens drew them from four groups: the fading aristocracy, the vulgar rising middle class, the downtrodden but struggling labor class, and the itinerant group, represented by the circus people." Josephine Curton, Ph.D

Wasn't Coriolanus a Roman general? Hence, the lady has, perhaps, a Roman nose? Emphatic, black eyebrows [very arch!]. This is how I picture her. But only 39? Well, maybe--watch for clues! I had not thought of Mrs. Sparsit as jealous, only as fearful of losing her "position" [both meanings] with Bounderby. But, we shall see...

And since I'm here, yes, we have a brand new character to dissect--Stephen Blackpool. One of the "hands" and one who has a real problem. Will anyone help him with it? Bounderby certainly won't! I predict the poor man, desperate for relief from a hag of a wife, desperate to be free to pursue a charming lady, [oh, cherchez la femme!] will do something, well, desperate! What a nice man, though--what will he do?!? Any predictions?

"Manchester - a center (commercial quarter) surrounded by concentric circles of residential housing. Concentric circles intersected by main thoroughfares, lined with shops hiding the housing behind them so upper classes can travel through the city oblivious of workers' existence."

Jeryn, I read the Hard Times appeared in 21 weekly installments - 37 chapters...which means that his readers were moving at a slower pace than we are...does that make you feel even better?


Of course! Coriolanus, Roman general ! Thanks for that! Loved the "arch eyebrows on Madame Sparsit" image! "Supercilious" comes to mind when I think of her...And Ginny with the Shakespeare reference too! Now why didn't I think of that!!! Will thumb through the Folger Edition on Saturday and see what mention of the eyebrows and nose! Do you think Dickens read Corolianus?


That was some post, Ginny! Wonderful observations...and great notes. Do you have the Norton edition? I tried to get it from the Central Library and find that the only copy in all the seven Arlington Libraries...is presently in one of the High School libraries, and I may not have it! Must check out B&N to see if I can order it...or shall I just rely on you? Can find nothing on "Lord Harry" yet, other than that the verb "harry" means to disturb or harass...


Larry, must say your post on the black ladder sent me back to reread the passage...now I have associated Stephen Blackpool's name with that black ladder and his descent into a pool of depression...


Back in a minute... (don't know if I'll make it to work today, and it's all Charlotte's fault!) Will have to get up at 5 a.m. tomorrow!

Marge, have you Texans cooled off a bit? I am so sorry for what you are all going through. Let's hope this break lasts...
Dickens may yet get around to "fleshing out" more of the characters, but to tell the truth, I like the sketches he provides...leaving the fleshing out to the reader's imagination. It reminds me of radio days...remember the stories, the soaps? TV took away a lot of that...


About these new characters, the representatives of the working class. I am having trouble believing

Stephen, although I do pity his situation. I'm going to quote a passage from Sylvere Monod's Dickens the Novelist ...briefly:

...the essential difference from the other novels, lies in the necessity in which Dickens had found himself, for both Hard Times and Tale of Two Cities, of looking for inspiration beyond the field of his daily experience, enlarged by the natural play of his imagination. In order to write Hard Times, he had to visit Preston (strikers - he found it a "bleak and nasty place") and get in touch with the working class of which he was so totally ignorant

Is this all strictly satire? Did his readers at the time know this and chuckle at the image he presents?

"Dull minds. Dull character.
How much human feeling can a man of 30 retain, if since childhood he has spent 12 hours per day making pin heads and in addition has lived amid all the other circumstances of the proletariat.
Man must be reduced to a subhuman entity - an animal or a machine. The only alternative - a refusal to be transformed generated by workers' anger and hatred.

There are two kinds of workers: those who submit and those who rebel,
Those who submit sink to vice and drunkenness.
Those who rebel exhibit fury against their oppressors."

Although Catholics had long enjoyed toleration in England, their church was governed by vicars apostolic rather than bishops and there was no diocesan or parish organization. But in 1850, partly to better administer to the large number of Catholic Irish flocking into England after the Irish Famine, the Catholic Church re-established its full hierarchy. For the first time since the reign of Mary Tudor (1555-1558), Catholics now had a a full hierarchy consistent with that of Catholic countries. Thirteen sees and the archdiocese of Westminster were established.

To liberals the re-establishment of the Catholic hierarchy in England was but a logical extension of toleration and full religious liberties, but to many other Englishmen it marked yet another disastrous concession to the "Bishop of Rome" and yet another sign that the Church of England, convulsed by the high ritualism and Anglo-Catholicism of the Oxford Movement and still reeling from the recent conversion to Catholicism of the eminent Anglican theologian, John Henry Newman, was in retreat before its old adversary, the Catholic Church.

I would like to squeeze in another snippet of information before we get to the new chapters...

I had a chance to look through Shakespeare's Coriolanus at the Folger yesterday.
This was the last tragedy Shakespeare wrote. It followed Antony and Cleopatra, his other Roman tragedy. Some saw this play as an aristocratic condemnation of the rabble populace, the disgruntled angry commoners. Others now view it as a revelation of the evils of dictators.

The theme of the play is Honor.
Corioli was the name of a town. Caius Martius, a Roman patrician, earned great honors for his military prowess, but was hated by the populace for his pride and for his contempt for the common people.

...a worthy officer, but insolent...o'ercome with pride, ambitious past all thinking, self-loving" Tragedy of Coriolanus V vi.

From Sylvere Monod's Dickens the Novelist:

"Thomas Wright called Dickens an 'ardent Shakespearean', but this is misleading. He was Shakespearean only in the sense that he never tired of attending new theatrical performances, but he was not one of those who know Shakespeare's works inside out. His Shakespearean knowledge is not strikingly wide; he evinces knowledge of several plays: Othello, Julius Caesar, Coriolanus, but the majority of his references are to two plays ...Hamlet and Macbeth..."

I thought it interesting, though will be the first to admit that we were right on, when we concluded those Carolinian eyebrows and nose to be aristocratic, haughty, disdainful, supercilious...

kathleen I see your most recent post - am closing my eyes tight till I get a chance to respond to your previous post...(and read tomorrow's chapters!)


You've raised a very interesting question regarding the story line and Dickens' intentions. I'm going to add it to our discussion list for the coming week.


Back in a few minutes.......

Some "end notes", to clear my desktop for the new chapters:

All the characters (with the exception of Mrs. Sparsit) have made their own way by their bootstraps...self-made, self-taught!
Most of the principal characters are in their 30's and 40's (with the exception of Mrs. Sparsit, who is <39+ no. of years with Bounderby = x> - and of course, Thomas and the 'little girls')

I find that interesting since Dickens was 42 at the time of publication..and he persists in calling these characters old!!!!!!!!!!.

Stephen Blackpool - 40 yrs.. I suppose his years at the mill aged him prematurely? "iron gray hair, long and thin"

(Stephen lives above a shop with 'wretched little toys, mixed up in the window with cheap newspapers and .........pork?)
Stephen at first introduction was married at 18 yrs. , which would make him 22 at the present...but he tells Bounderby he was married at 19 on Easter, making him 21. No big deal, but ???

Josiah Bounderby - "a banker, manufacturer, merchant and what not" 47 yrs. (not much hair)


Thomas Gradgrind - "in the wholesale hardware trade before he built Stone Lodge, and was now looking abut for a suitable opportunity of making an arithmetical figure in Parliament.""(?) Have we heard more about him, about his childhood and background? I've forgotten!

Loved the contrast of Stephen at his loom in the mill, and Mrs. Sparsit weaving in Bounderby's parlour! Was this a hobby for her, or was there a practical reason for her weaving?

Off to meet another Old Lady, I see. I wonder just how old is old, or does it depend on what kind of life one has led? Talk to you tomorrow about her, kathleen

To me the most unusual "Twist" in these recent chapters is the reversal of the usual concept of an abusive, wasteful, alcoholic husband to an abusive, wasteful alcoholic WIFE. I find this almost astonishing !!!

Best

LJ

Will also keep an eye opened for information to answer your question, "Was CD a religious man?" For some reason I doubt it, although he may have been a church-goer.

Are we to learn what brought about the fall of the nameless wife? (Why isn't he naming her?) She must have been something special at one time...

"He thought that he, and some one on whom his heart had long been set-but she was not Rachael....."

Marge, I don't really have a problem with Stephen's age...just puzzled. I have a hard time believing it was a "typo" . You have quoted the first reference.."married on Eas'r Monday nineteen year sin" and then in Chapter XIII, ( right before she snatches the poison), while sitting at his wife's bedside, regarding her face ...

"no single trace was left in those debauched features, or in the mind that went along with them, of the woman he had married eighteen years before."

I am glad that you are getting involved with the characters... Mrs. Sparsit is still my favorite, but the picture of this old woman will stay with me - the one where she reaches out for the mug, snatches the POISON vial, snags the cork with her teeth........Mercy!!!


Ginny, yes, Dickens was aware of a lot more horror in the mills than he allows himself to reveal in this tale. He seems to go out of his way to downplay the truth of the "Fairy Palaces".

I still think the exquisite rarity of the alcoholic, debauched, wife who sells the family posessions etc. is worthy of especial note.

Best

LJ

I am looking forward to your research as to whether Dickens was or was not particularly religious. My instinct tells me he was only as religious as one might expect the average person to be for the times. No more, no less.

Best

LJ

Best

LJ

I believe William James simply described dreams as wish fullfillment mechanisms which is both superficial and incomplete.

Next, one would have to comprehend "Process Thinking" which has never been all that clear to me.

I believe that one could safely ignore the witchcraft literature about dreams. In reading fiction, I simply try to fathom the author's intentions and in reading non-fiction I settle for adumbration.

Best

LJ

"I think what a dream we live in, until it seems for the moment the saddest dream that ever was dreamed." The world of his fiction became confused with the world of his waking life.

Dickens' wife Catherine had a younger sister, Mary Hogarth (not Georgina who later lived with the family.) Mary had lived with the Dickens in the first months of their marriage, but died at the age of 17. She had spent the previous night with Dickens and Catherine to see a performance of one of his farces. They returned home at one in the morning. Mary went to her room but, before she could undress, collapsed. The doctors later diagnosed her condition as one of heart failure. She died in Dickens' arms two hours later. Ackroyd tells us that his grief was so intense that it represented the most powerful sense of loss and pain he was ever to experience. For the next nine months he dreamed of her every night, and he used to say that her image haunted him by day....
These "visions of Mary" dreams persisted throughout his life, though not as frequently.

Many of his dreams entailed "precognition". In one dream he tells of a lady in a red shawl who turned to him and said, "I am Miss Napier"; the next evening he met the same lady for the first time, wearing the same shawl, bearing the same name.


More...

A Christmas Carol was derived from dreams Dickens had the previous summer.
Even verbal expressions were dreamed...He had a dream in which a particular friend is pronounced to be "dead as a doornail". Old Morley in Christmas Carol is described as "dead as a doornail" Is this an original Dickens' expression? I think it may be...and it originated in a dream!

Another prophetic dream...This one occurred while Dickens was working on his last novel...
He dreamed his friend, a journalist, Douglas Jerrold came to him with a piece of writing which Dickens could not decipher. He was overcome with a feeling of helplessness. The next day, he got on a train and a stranger turned to him and said "Jerrold is dead".

Can you stand one more? This is long, but quite interesting and a superb example of his incredibly graphic and detailed dream life. He awoke from the dream and repeated it to Catherine in detail because he never wanted to forget it.

The Dickens family was to spend some time in Genoa. Dickens was suffering from old childhood pains in his back and side and was unable to sleep. Finally, he dreamed of a spirit wrapped in blue drapery like a Madonna. He knew it was poor Mary Hogarth. He stretched out his arms and called her "dear" and then "forgive me! We poor living creatures are only able to express ourselves by looks and worlds. I have used the word most natural to our affections, and you know my heart."


The Spirit said nothing and Dickens began to sob, "Oh, give me some token that you have really visited me!"

The Spirit: "Form a wish."
Dickens: "Mrs. Hogarth (his mother-in-law) is surrounded with great distresses. Will you extricate her?"
The Spirit:"Yes."
Dickens: "And her extrication is to be a certainty to me, that this has really happened?"
The Spirit: "Yes."
Dickens: "But answer me one other question! What is the True religion? You think, as I do , that the Form of religion does not so greatly matter, if we try to do good? Or perhaps the Roman Catholic is the best? Perhaps it makes one think of God oftener, and believe in him more steadily?"
The Spirit: "For you it is the best."

ps ...and I promise to be quiet for a while!

The only significant dreams I can recall (And there are precious few) have been typical Freudian symbolism and mostly a half century in my past. These days I sleep lightly enough that when I do dream, Its mostly wish-fullfillment and my goodness, but I do hate for them to end as I awaken.

Since we are also on "Churches", can someone tell me about the "Church of the florid wooden legs"? coming up close to the end of "Seed-Sowing"?

Best

LJ

You saw nothing in Coketown but what was severely workful. If the members of a religious persuasion built a chapel there- as the members of eighteen religious persuasions had done- they made it a pious warehouse of red brick, with sometimes (but this only in highly ornamented examples) a bell in a bird-cage on the top of it. The solitary exception was the New Church; a stuccoed edifice with a square steeple over the door, terminating in four short pinnacles like florid wooden legs.

I want full reports of your dreams tonight! It's the only way to figure how unusual CD's dreams are.

Have to go clean up the dinner dishes!


Later!

Best

LJ

Best

LJ

Louisa is resigned to her "fate"... she can see no better alternative in her life so she opts to go along with what fate has presented her with the expectation that it will at least help someone she loves dearly--her brother, Tom. Tom loves it, the cad! He thinks he's on easy street now, being the brother-in-law of his boss! As for Gradgrind, the father--what a thoughtless, Victorian perp but he means well. I hope he gets some sort of rude awakening before this thing is over.

Now we have sown; what shall we reap?

P.S. Joan: I think I dream in sort of greyish sepia tones, shadowy, like it's always night. I think.

Best

LJ

I noticed that passage especially with its allegory to "FIRE" It struck me as just about the only spot where there was an implication that Louisa was capeable exhuberance.

Indeed her performance WAS languid, but in that one passage a potential for an explosive denouement became apparant.

Best

LJ

Larry's right, these are busy days in our house! Today for example is our 31st wedding anniversary and our Will's (4th son) twenty-second birthday. Am a bit behind, but oh, what dazzling posts!!!


Will try to catch up...working backwards...

Young Thomas and Louisa, products of the same parents, upbringing, education (indoctrination) - and yet such a different outlook on life. You'd think that Gradgrind would be more pleased with Thomas, than with his 'favorite child'. Thomas is just delighted living with Bounderby - upbeat and euphoric about what the future will hold, now that Louisa is marrying his benefactor.

But poor 'severely depressed', 'passionate, though constricted" Louisa has no such hope for improvement. I'll have to disagree with you on this one, Larry, I don't think she believes that marrying Bounderby will lift the oppression she feels. I think it's too late and she knows it. She accepts the marriage proposal with the condition that her father delivers her message word for word:

"Since Mr. Bounderby likes to take me thus, I am satisfied to accept his proposal."

"Do you think I love Mr. Bounderby?"
"Do you ask me to love Mr. Bounderby?"
"Does Mr. Bounderby ask me to love him?"
"What would you advise me to use in its stead, father?

"Does Mr. Bounderby ask me to marry him."
"Shall I marry him?"
"There seems to be nothing there but languid and monotonous smoke. Yet when night comes..."
"I do not see the application of the remark."
"I have often thought that life is very short."
"The average duration of human life is proved to have increased..."
"I speak of my own life, father"
"Oh? ...it is governed by the laws which govern life in the aggregate."
"While it lasts, I would wish to do the little I can, and the little I am fit for. What does it matter?"
Mr. G. seemed rather at a loss to understand the last four words..."

I think I'll add catatonic to the adjective list, so rigid and numb does she seem. What will it take to snap her out of it. Yes, it will have to be quite "an explosive denouement", as LJ puts it. Will there be fire?


Any dreams lately? Still very interested! Jeryn...I'd love sepia! How dramatic! Will tell you what I dreamed last night...color! Yes! No funny mushrooms for dinner either...

I think that we may be surprised by Louisa in the future. At least, I hope so, since she is supposed to be so smart. Wishful thinking, on my part.

As to Mrs Sparsit and Bounderby's worries over how she will receive his announcement of marriage to Louisa. I believe he describes himself to himself by having her around. He is so taken with her social standing and doesn't want to lose her influence.

And, maybe he doesn't even know about the old woman who appears on his birthday every year. He may not even be aware of her faithfulness.

Isn't is interesting when Tom comes to Bounderby to ask for permission to divorce his wife. What different times they live in? And Bounderby says its possible if Tom has enough money and patience. Bummer!

About the church. First, the word pinnacles to us indicates something at the top and thus not "florid wooden legs." But Websters gives an archaic use: "An architectural member, upright, and generally ending in a small spire, -- used to finish a buttress, to constitute a part in a proportion, as where pinnacles flank a gable or spire, and the like." Then the "New Church" itself. The one termed New Church in Manchester and many cities in England is the Church of the New Jerusalem. This Church was established due to Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772). He was knowledgeable and had many advanced idea, such as a flying machine, submarine, and canal system to carry a naval armada over land. After a great spiritual awakening he wrote books on many religious aspects. A good short biography giving other information can be found on-line at biography.com.

Loma, you have provided the much sought after information about the church! Now I wonder how that particular church ties into CD's vision of the people of Coketown?

Imagine this large. square, stuccoed church with four florid wooden legs ... reaching to the sky in this damp, gray, sooty, brick industrial town of Manchester/Cokeville!
Perhaps we will hear of this church again. Keep in mind Marge's question..."how does this church tie in with the people of Coketown?" What is Dickens saying about religion here, if as kathleen suggests it symbolizes "his belief or lack of belief in organized religion"...He puts Bounderby and Gradgrind into its congregation for heaven's sake!

Let's all be on the lookout for more on Loma's fascinating Church of the New Jerusalem too!

What do you mean, it was common for a housekeeper to have a maid upon retirement? Only if the housekeeper remained in the house, right? Mrs. Sparsit is a strange housekeeper, isn't she? Sitting there weaving (weaving what?), as Bounderby eats his lunch. I enjoyed the little chair maneuvering in front of the fireplace...

"He drew up his chair, and Mrs. Sparsit drew back hers, as who should say, 'Your fireplace Sir...'
'Don't go to the North Pole, ma'am...'
'Thank you, Sir,' said Mrs. Sparsit, and returned, though short of her former position..."

Is she to see anything more of Bounderby? Why does her reaction upset him so? He expected her to carry on...why, I wonder. We have seen nothing of this haughty woman that would indicate hysteria or the need for smelling salts. He seems really disappointed that she doesn't show regret...and she loves it! The more he blusters, the more she soothes him: 'I fondly hope that Miss Gradgrind may be all you desire, and deserve!'

We still don't know her age...just that she came to Bounderby's at the death of her husband when she was 39. but not how many years she's been with him...I'll agree with you on the trophy description, Nellie, but am not sure about the mother substitute! I still suspect there is something else going on between the two. Certainly she intimidates him, as kathleen says...

Charlotte, I enjoyed your description of the different reactions to the wedding announcement. It seems that Gradgrind and Bounderby share the same reticence about bringing up the subject, as if they are both aware that it is not really a good match...and Sissy and Mrs. Sparsit make clear their misgivings, without saying much - pitying glances and coughing... and then of course, Louisa's own mother's only concern is what to call her new son- in-law...and then of course her great comment:, "...if your head begins to split as soon as you are married which was the case with mine, I cannot consider that you are to be envied..." I suppose she is also expressing some sort of disapproval in her own way. Billy, I'll guess the headache routine is universal, going back to...to the Odyssey!

Sometimes we do get a glimpse of a real person under Gradgrind's eyebrows...especially in his conversations with "Jupe", though not with his own daughter. What is to happen to Sissy now...I forget...is she going to Bounderby's as well?


And Tom is living at Bounderby's? When Louisa gets there, won't she need a housekeeper? Larry, I could be wrong about "pitiful, constricted, depressed, catatonic Louisa not caring where she lives...or with whom. She could be going to get away from her oppressive household...or as Nellie says, because she wants to make her brother happy. He certainly has been lobbying for the marriage, and Louisa knows how he feels. I don't think it matters to her one way or another. She certainly isn't real happy about it!


kathleen leaves us with yet another interesting question, which I intend to put in the heading - along with the Time quote:

"So far we've watched vignettes of different people. Will Dickens weave them together or use the background of Coketown as the only combining factor?"

ps Charlotte your recovery from cataract surgery is awesome! Congratulations!


kathleen, between the Hardy discussion and Hard Times, Senior Net installed new software. That's the only reason I can think of to explain why you must log in before you post now. I usually log in as soon as I come in so I can look to see where there are "new messages" in all the book sites. When I come into Great Books I am already logged in before I post That's probably the reason I haven't noticed the change you mention. Will bring it up and see if others experience the same thing...probably Larry knows...


Later!

No one dreaming these days?

I have always been asked to log in before posting anything on Seniornet since way last summer when I found this delightful site. Just commenting!

Best

LJ

Wasn't it called "Devil-Weed" in those days??

Best

LJ

I think we will find that Mrs Sparsit is really a trouble maker and just waiting and watching for her chance to get back in the home and hearth of Mr Bounderby.

I must confess to have read much farther ahead but will keep mum on the outcome of this neat book. Give me a break, I am using a library book for this and have already paid out overdue amounts plus renewed it twice. (I know! I should have gone to B&N and bought my own copy but "what can I say, after I say I'm sorry?")

Yes, we must pay attention to the "fairy palace references, the Bank Fairy etc.
And what of the "Jerusalem reference? - ...they probably would have decided him to 'go in' for Jerusalem again tomorrow morning, had he been less curious respecting Louisa, What does this mean? I was thinking the Gradgrind political party would send him to Jerusalem if he did not show enough interest in his Coketown assignment, in Louisa. But Blake's "dark and satanic mills" in Jerusalem !!! Too splendid an association to overlook!

Dickens wastes no time with Reaping the results of the Sowing in Book I, does he? We meet Bitzer, Thomas and Louisa in these early chapters. Who has most absorbed the Gradgrind lessons?


LJ, I paused at the "rarer tobacco than was to be bought in those parts" and wondered if it was the tobacco or the "cooling drink, not so weak as cool" or a combination of the two which contributed to Tom's "open mind", open mouth.... But your "Devil-weed" is certainly in line with the image of the tempter, Lucifer.

Poor Tom, we are warned of the seriousness of the information he has provided - "he should have gone to bed in the ill-smelling river...curtained his head forever with its filthy water."

What did he say? He managed to tie together all of the characters (except Stephen and Rachael) into some sort of dark plot through Jem Harthouse. kathleen. I do believe your question (#8 in the heading) is being answered!!!

And the new information from Peter Ackroyd in the heading may help with your question #7.

Ann, you are doing a great job keeping the plot under wraps, since you've read ahead! No more library books!!! Read the chapters from the heading above (under COMPLETE TEXT!!!)

Mrs. Sparsit was a revelation in Chapter I! Let's talk about her! I won't say anything yet - want to hear your reactions first. But I will say I was really excited about the references to her age and feel it is significant in answering question #4 above...."O, you fool...."

Best

LJ

About the question: And what of the "Jerusalem" reference? - ...they probably would have decided him to 'go in' for Jerusalem again tomorrow morning, had he been less curious respecting Louisa, What does this mean? In Chapter 2, CD tells us how Harthouse has been bumbling through life: "...had tried life as a Cornet of Dragoons, and found it a bore; had afterwards tried it in the train of an English minister abroad and found it a bore; and had then strolled to Jerusalem and got bored there; and had then gone yachting about the world, and got bored everywhere." I think CD is just saying Harthouse found Bounderby even more boring and would have considered heading back to Jerusalem if it had not been for interest in Louisa.

You know, I didn't even pick up on Bitzer's name! Guess I thought he was somewhat older, too. In chapter I, it seems to me the person Bitzer dislikes is young Thomas, at the bank. He says "Pretty fair, ma'am. With the usual exception, ma'am....Mr. Thomas, ma'am, I doubt Mr. Thomas very much, ma'am, I don't like his ways at all." Then Mrs. Sparsit insists he stop using the name and refer to "the individual". Then Bitzer says, "An individual, ma'am, has never been what he ought to have been since he first came into the place. He is a dissipated, extravagant idler. He is not worth his salt, ma'am. He wouldn't get it either, if he hadn't a friend and relation at court, ma'am." Sounds like Tom to me, with his father now in Parliament.

One more thing, I assumed Tom's problem controlling his eye to be just the effect of his being blitzed on Harthouse's cooling drink. Harthouse is deliberately getting him soused for some reason, as yet unknown.

And another lovely Dickens line: "...when darkness seemed to rise slowly out of the ground and creep upward, upward, up to the house-tops, up the church steeple, up to the summits of the factory chimneys, up to the sky." Is that evocative, or what??

And it becomes abundantly clear in these chapters that Louisa only married Bounderby in order to further her brother's interest--to make life easier for him, her favorite person; the only person who lights up her face, as Harthouse observes at dinner with the Bounderbys. Can this man, looking to alleviate his boredom, be a "rake"?!? Ah, I do have my suspicions!

Yes,I agree, the use of simoon is quite a description, Loma, and Dickens' choice of the word, considering its derivation is also intriguing in the context of these chapters:

simoom, Aram <samum poisonous.
simoom<samma, to poison
Aram samma, drug, poison

I think Dickens's heavy-handed satire and broad brushstrokes are quite evident in these pages. The method of serial publication required the author to keep things clear - in his own words from another book, "not to put too fine a point on it." Readers needed to be able to pick up the threads of the story each week, and they needed to have a vivid impression of each character. Subtleties and extensive reflection were not called for. They wanted entertainment.

Just as today every sitcom "problem" must be solved within the spaces between commercials, there had to be repeated conflicts and resolutions in every episode. The factory uprisings of the 1840's might indeed have inspired him initially, but his audience had little appetite for political reflection. Give them a story line with heroines, villains, sentiment, pious generalizations, obvious ironies, and plenty of comic characters. Let the moral lessons fall where they might.

Dickens has already cast Tom as a predictably weak, foolish and corruptible character, made Bitzer into a mechanical, unimaginative, self-serving drudge, and shown Louisa as a creature burning with secret passion ("Fire bursts out, Father!") that she conceals beneath an icy shell of indifference and passivity.

Somehow we are to believe that Gradgrind's materialistic educational practices can produce three such distinct types, each destined for a different fate.

Tom's foolishness is underlined by his elaborate grimacing and constant winking as he tries to attract the attention of Harthouse. (Can't you picture a Dickensian "Phiz" caricature of a vacant face with one large rolling eye elaborately opening and closing at every opportunity?)

Harthouse himself is a stock younger brother: a handsome drifter, rich enough to travel the world, amoral, bored with everything, now trying his hand at interpreting "Hard Facts" from the Parliamentary Blue Books and looking out for some diversion.

Except for those females whose redemptive roles are unfolding chapter by chapter, Dickens manages to sprinkle derision on everyone, major and minor characters, entrepreneurs, rabble-rousers, laborers, and equestrians. He pokes fun at the emotional fragility of the factory-owners who claim that every assault on their wealth and power threatens their existence; but later he will portray those "hardy, unflinching" workers as mindless sheep. Stephen is perhaps exempted because as the noble savage in this community of the over-civilized he is drawn with kindly condescension.

Ros

Some observations and questions on some of the points you made:

"...his readers wanted entertainment"
That's why he wrote it - to boost the sales of Household Words. He intended to write it as an amusing fable...Ginny mentioned earlier that he intended to include a chapter on industrial accidents, but deleted them right before publication. Too unpleasant! Marge is probably right...the fairy palaces, bank fairy references were bits of irony, but I also think the repetition of the terms remind us that Dickens intended this as a fairy tale...pure Fancy!

"The factory uprisings...might have inspired him initially, but his audience had little appetite for political reflection.
Sylvere Monod writes that Dickens usually wrote from his own experience, enlarged by the natural play of his own imagination - but that in Hard Times, he found himself going beyond his own experience. 'He had to visit the Preston mill and get in touch, superficially of course, with the working class of which he was totally ignorant.'
"...and let the moral lessons fall where they might" Peter Ackroyd, in the paragraph in the heading above, tells us that the original motivation for the story was to attack the movement to present fairy tales to children with moral lessons...and yet that is exactly what Dickens' ends up doing with this fable of the machine age. I think that's the supreme irony here!

"Somehow we are to believe that Gradgrind's materialistic educational practices can produce three such distinct types, each destined for a different fate." Do you find yourself believing these characters? I do. At least I'm willing to allow myself to accept, to go along with the characterizations as presented. The only one I have trouble with is Mr. Harthouse. If he is so bored and world-weary, I cannot understand his spending any time studying the Parliamentary Blue Books and going through the political drill, just to do something different. I guess I can see the challenge in conquering Louisa, but that came up after he decided to join the Gradgrind party...

Jeryn, why do you think Mrs. Sparsit wants to "move the little puss out" of Bounderby's life? To return to the status quo? Or to be closer to Bounderby? Why on earth would she want that? Isn't she happy enough with her position at the bank (whatever that is)?

And what of Louisa? She certainly seems improved after a year of marriage, doesn't she. I mean, she carries on a conversation with Harthouse...with some interest, she smiles radiantly at her brother. I thought she'd be worse off being married to Mr. B. She shudders whenever he speaks. Do you know what I think? I think that the marriage has never been consummated! Otherwise, she'd be a basket case! I think she is merely a trophy wife and that is fine with both of them! What do you think?

Of course the marriage has been consummated--why else does Louisa shudder!?! A trophy wife? Not quite. Too much is made of her education and intelligence--trophy wife? Not by my definition. Louisa's only raison d'etre, misguided though it is, appears to be furthering the happiness and well being of her brother, Tom.

Burning question: will she fall to the charms and wiles of the attractive Harthouse??? Stay tuned! Does anyone else see certain similarities here to your basic soap opera??!

I believe Dickens used the serial, soap operaish [is this a word?] qualities to "hook" his readers; but his deeper agenda was to satirize, raise consciousness, and generally advertise the social problems of his times. As already so well recorded above by Joan, Roslyn, et al; I will not compete with their efficiency!

The situation is so well described by Gowers in Fowler's Modern English Usage that I'll quote the whole passage:

A(i)n't is merely colloquial, and as used for isn't is an uneducated blunder and serves no useful purpose. But it is a pity that a(i)n't for am not, being a natural contraction and supplying a real want, should shock us as though tarred with the same brush....The speaker [has a] sneaking fear that the colloquially respectable and indeed almost universal aren't I is "bad grammar" and that ain't I will convict him of low breeding.

So, you see, when Sojourner Truth challenged her audience with "And ain't I a woman?" she was using a standard form.

Ros

"She was so constrained, and yet so careless; so reserved and yet so watchful; so cold and proud, and yet so sensitively ashamed of her husband's braggart humility - from which she shrunk as if every example of it were a cut or a blow..."

"You saw nothing in Coketown but what was severely workful. If the members of a religious persuasion built a chapel there- as the members of eighteen religious persuasions had done- they made it a pious warehouse of red brick, with sometimes (but this only in highly ornamented examples) a bell in a bird-cage on the top of it. The solitary exception was the New Church; a stuccoed edifice with a square steeple over the door, terminating in four short pinnacles like florid wooden legs."

Regarding Joan's questions for this week: "Castlereagh" sounds Scottish? Slackbridge must be a traitor, or one lacking loyalty, if compared to Judas Iscariot. Perhaps then as today, such men are in it for the money? Union organizer--paid by the union of some other area to bring in new membership, hence more dues. A person with no real sympathy for the persons he seeks to influence.

I think Blackpool sees through this scam; but also refuses to go along with the crowd because of a promise made to Rachael. I'm scratching my head as to WHY he made such a promise? To be revealed later, no doubt.

I'm assuming the basic goodness in Stephen shines out, appealing to Louisa's inner feelings--we have had hints of these feelings in the past--and causing her to "soften" in her behavior towards these people. We are obviously meant to sympathize with these characters--Stephen and Louisa; Dickens makes no secret identifying his "good guys" and "bad guys"!

Seniornet book clubbers are setting out to make a LIST! For more info and the opportunity to make suggestions of criteria for this LIST, check out the Library--A Conversation Nook TODAY!!!

In this next trinity of chapters we seem to be reaching a watershed where the book, like a large picture being downloaded from the internet is very undeveloped at the bottom, fully developed at the top and begining to form a discernable matrix gradeing between the two.

The Banker's Mother is now clearly developed as such, and one at first wonders why her story is not more clearly defined. The answer is at the same time obvious. If one reconstructs what we've already heard (read) the story is patently obvious with only the choice of details left to the reader. Details are flexable enough based on the Egocentricity and intellectual dishonesty of the banker to allow any reader to meditate long and hard about the questions of "What REALY happened?" and "What if?"

Taking another stem in the literary analysis, I'm obsessed with the many allusions to St. Stephen and will not embark on a T.S. Eliot type of jargon analysis, but would be fascinated by what others care to suggest in this vein.

Did anyone notice the paraphrase of "Thou Makest me to lie down in Green Pastures?" i.e. "Thou makest me to see it with a Better Eye"

And (Passing over the Rachel biblical allusions and comparisons) the crucial passage presageing modern political and argumentive debates and social problems (paraphrased) : "But I know the strong hand will never do it, Victory and triumph will never do it agreeing to make one side always and unnaturally right and the other side always and forever wrong will never do it nor yet lettin things alone will never do it,".

I'm anxious to hear this week's commentary.

Best

LJ

Best

LJ

"The Sanhedrin were convulsed with hysterical rage. They hustled Stephen off to a place outside the city and stoned him to death. As he died he prayed for them, 'Lord, do not count this sin against them,' and the prayer was heard-not only by God but by Saul of Tarsus. Saul had been present at all this. He knew that he was witnessing a revolting crime. He could not bring himself to join in the stoning; but he held the coats of those who did. Afterwards, he tried to smother his conscience by furiously persecuting other Christians, but it was hard for him to kick against the goad. Not long afterwards he set out on that journey to Damascus which led him, in the end, to a martyrdom like Stephen's."

LJ, it would appear from the sources I have read, that Stephen was stoned before Saul's conversion to Christianity. Where did you read that circumcision stuff? Saul was a Jew at this point...was he torturing Stephen, another Jew for becoming a Christian? Things aren't looking too good for our Stephen, are they?

Interesting reading on "Rachel", too. She was the one Jacob really wanted as his wife, but waited patiently, as he already had a wife......

Yes, a very poignant parting! Dickens just got finished telling us that it is more difficult living a life of solitude among a familiar crowd. Will Stephen fare better living alone in unfamiliar territory?

Where does Stephen fit into Dickens' scheme and theory? Is he just another of the educationally deprived working class without the imagination, the wherewithall to see him tough times? Or is he an outlier of sorts...What is Dickens telling us through this character?

Sure enough, Dickens takes it beyond the opening sentence with several more sentences to emphasize the heat from the sun that day :

"The streets were hot and dusty on the summer day, and the sun was so bright that it even shone through the heavy vapour drooping over Coketown, and could not be looked at steadily."

"Drowsily they whirred all through this sunny day, making the passenger more sleepy and more hot as he passed the humming walls of the mills."

"But the sun itself, however beneficent, generally, was less kind to Coketown than hard frost, and rarely looked intently into any of its closer regions without engendering more death than like. So does the eye of Heaven itself become an evil eye, when incapable or sordid hands are interposed between it and the things it looks upon to bless."

What do you all make of the significance of the name "James Harthouse"? I don't see any heart at all here and am at a loss. Anything in Norton concerning the meaning behind the name? I've not seen "Jem" used as a nickname for James, either, Marge, but it is closer to James than "Jim". I wonder if the usage went from James>Jem>Jim. My American Heritage says nothing except that "Jemmy" is a variation of "Jimmy".

Back in a few minutes...notes piling up here and I'm supposed to be packing for vacation on Sunday!

So, Castleraugh is "a Napoleonic statesman, considered a tryannical reactionary by the working class." Thanks Ginny! I think that Slackbridge is applying the names of Brutus, Judas, Castleraugh to Stephen Blackpool to excite the crowd against him for his lack of loyalty to his fellow workers, Jeryn. But I think you are right...Dickens is really describing Slackbridge himself,using his own words to the crowd, deceiving the workers for 'pieces of silver'...

Perhaps Stephen promised Rachael not to join because he didn't wish to offend those in power who might be in a position to help him to obtain a divorce...
BTW, Jeryn's LIST should send us all flying over to the Library...perhaps our next Great Book selection is lying on a table over there....

LJ, you dazzle !!! Thanks for that thought-provoking post! Yes, we must pay particular attention to Dickens' many biblical allusions. Things are not looking good for Stephen, are they? And he's left Coketown!

Best

LJ

If you've ever read The Peterkin Papers you might remember the struggles of that redoubtable family to solve problems through elaborate and usually fruitless solutions. Confronted with a pot of coffee that contained salt, they researched every chemistry book they could find and added innumerable ingredients without success. Their more practical friend, known only as The Lady from Philadelphia, finally suggested, to their astonished delight, that they just toss it out and make a fresh pot.

There once was a housewife who was preparing to entertain important guests. Early on the morning of her party she began to dust the piano. Wishing to make it even cleaner, she washed the keys, and then decided to remove the keyboard and dust inside. One thing led to another, and when her husband the guests arrived at dinnertime, there was no dinner. There sat the lady on the floor, still in her blue jeans, surrounded by the pieces of the dismantled piano.

In perhaps one of his most memorable and often-cited utterances, Sigmund Freud (an inveterate smoker and well as a very smart guy) told some of his disciples who sought to interpret every aspect of life that "a cigar isn't always a phallic symbol, you know. Sometimes it's just a cigar."

Best wishes to all earnest seekers of knowledge.

The Lady from Michigan

Best

LJ

Come to think of it, he has placed all the "good guys" together in Stephen's rooms, with one glaring exception...quiet little Thomas over there in the corner, sucking his walking stick - just waiting for an opening to deceive Stephen...

Ros, pulleeez, no more cigar talk! We, within the Beltway blanche at the word these days! Piano keys are fine! In fact, I relate very well to the lady in the blue jeans. That would be me. I plead guilty! Have always delved, and don't know where to stop. In Dickens' case, I want to read the story and know everything his readers did in his time. I don't want to miss a single reference. I want to know about the New Church, Castleraugh and the Perkins' Mill. This is probably why I'd be a basket case if we decide to read Ulysses next!!!

By the way, nominations are starting, informally, for the next selection. There's a clickable in the heading above to get to the nomination site. We will go at it in earnest when I get back from vacation - in mid-September and can keep the list going...Put on your thinking caps...we are looking for something you would really like to read, which you think would also interest the Bookies! Ros, I would love to have done Prufrock with you...but time is so limited and we leave for two weeks on Sunday........

Marge, I hope you are not getting lost in the analyses, but I must say here that there is a difference between looking for the authors' intent when choosing names - like Rhett Butler, for example, and Stephen Blackpool. Dickens is sending messages with his name choices which do not detract, but are part of the melodrama...

Thanks, LJ, Ros...I found the quote and put it up top! A good one...we can all learn from that, especially, "Agreeing fur to mak one side unnat'rally awlus and for ever right, and toother side unnat'rally awlus and for ever wrong, will never, never do't. Nor yet lettin alone will never do't."

I would be interested to hear from the rest of you concerning these issues. If you prefer less background and analyses, that would be important to know!

The Lady from within the Beltway

And Welcome Home, Charlotte - your careful analyses arrive in the nick of time. Keep it up, ok? How are your eyes?

Yes, Mrs. Sparsit is a sketch, isn't she? She knows just how to get to Bounderby with her pity! We'll hear a lot more of her in the next two weeks! (I peeked!)

What does she want of Bounderby? Her old position - or him? Don't you think it's odd that this 'ancient woman' and wimpy Bitzer live in the bank - for security reasons?

You think that Stephen doesn't join the union because he fears he'll lose his job? What of the other Hands? Don't they fear the same?

Oh Nellie, I forgot about the Bounderby wind, gale and hurricane as he blew away Stephen!!! You and kathleen have caused me to rethink Stephen. (Why does he talk like that? Can Rachel understand him? I thought back when he took such trouble with Sleary's lisp that Dickens was attempting to focus our attention on what he had to say - by making us work at deciphering it. Maybe he's doing the same with Stephen's dialect.)

So Stephen is "wonderful, warm, uncomplaining and wise beyond what an education would have given him". Yes, I do see Dickens in Stephen's character (in fact I see him in several other characters too). But I'm wondering where all these qualities came from, without the sort of upbringing which would foster stretching the imagination, and producing the sensitive character we hear Dickens champion. Is Sissy the only character he will present to us with such an upbringing?

Nellie, I liked the way Dickens described Louisa's budding awareness of the individuality of the Coketown inhabitants too! He went on to say:
"she had scarcely thought more of separating them into units, than of separating the sea itself into its component drops.

And yes, add the name Pegler to the list of names needing explanation, BUT I really want Harthouse! In fact, there's a reward out to whomever comes up with the meaning of that name!

That's all, folks! I may have just missed the plane. Will be thinking of you and your responses to the next chapters. Enjoy!

LATER!!!

I nominate "Balkan Sobranie" as the brand of tobacco in Hearthouse's pipe`and I noted, as I'm sure everyone did that Bounderby referred to his mother as a "Witch on a Broom", but I was positively SHOCKED by the seductive Brother/Sister scene which surely was deliberate on CD's part and which was clearly beyond a "Normal" interchange between blood siblings of adult years, especially when counterposed to the Whelp's comment that his Sister's behavior with her husband is "Unnatural"

I gather that Ms Sparsit's contempt for Bounderby will become clearer as she continues to "Wheedle" (That's the best word I can think of) but his contempt for her is now clearly stated in the phrase "I am the proprietor of this female" which CD casually employs.

I think we are to recognize that Bitzer would not have slept thru a lock being "FORCED"

Best

LJ

The earlier posts intrigued me! I get along fine with my kids [well, kid--my daughter died recently] and I, too, finished college while my kids were in Junior High School! It was fun going back to school. I've never had regrets even though the process had a lot of repercussions as to family reaction at the time... details too gruesome to mention.

On a lighter note, I would like to give an up-to-date report on the activities of one Charley Dickens, esteemed [?] mascot of the Hard Timers. The little lout sleeps an awful lot but he came to life long enough yesterday to bust a LAMP. He is in our doghouse [er, cat house?] now!

I am dropping out of this discussion as I have been sick as a dog for the past three weeks with four hospital visits plus much medication and three procedures, the last yesterday. Anyway, I have just so much time left for reading and Hard Times has been returned to the library. Sorry!

By the way, What's an "Alderny"?

Best

LJ

When I was a kid our milk was delivered by Alderney Farms

Alderney: A British island in the Channel Islands. separated from the French Coast by the Race of Alderney.


Alderney: One of a breed of dairy cattle originally raised in the Channel Islands

kathleen and Nellie, I do believe you have provided the information we need to derive Dickens' meaning of the Harthouse name.

hart - "a full grown deer which chews regurgitated food and chews again (uses knowledge gained from others for his own benefit.)"
-"symbolic of the cuckolded husband."

Yes, Nellie, Hamlet to Horatio, a gravedigger...
"Alas poor Yorick! (the king's jester, full of fun...went mad and now is dead) Where be your gibes now? Your gambols Your songs? Your flashes of merriment. Not one now to mock your own grinning? Quite chapfallen (dejected)!"
Here the context is "Mrs. Sparsit, determined to pity Bounderby, would look at him, shake her head as if to say, 'Alas, poor Yorick!'

Jo- I looked for you in Pittsburgh today on Friendship Ave between Bloomfield and East Liberty...and again at lunch in Lambadozzi's...where were you?
Your comments on Steven's goodness were important and need further discussion. Manana...

LJ, no one seconds your Balkan Sobranie nomination. Accept it as our own ignorance rather than disagreement!

...All the comments on the relationships between Louisa and her brother, Bounderby and his mother were intriguing. Let's hope we get more information about them before we are finished.

To me, the most fascinating relationship of all is that between Mrs. Sparsit and Bounderby. The contempt is now very clear. Is revenge Mrs. Sparsit's true motive...even more than love, money, position, power?

I must add that I was impressed by the intensity of Sparsit's response to her failure in her pursuit of our heroine's downfall.

I was also impressed with the tragedy implied and apparantly felt by Gradgrind upon his realization of his abject failure in life.

Best

LJ

Jo started this with her "Fancology". Let's see how we can develop it! LJ, I think it's time to call upon your special skill to coin a new "ology" for us!

Jo, it was a mad dash through Pittsburgh, with much to accomplish in a very short time - although we did find time to ride up one of the inclines Sunday pm. I thought of you and would love to have met you...was with my husband, who doesn't quite believe that you, any of you, really exist!


I think that Mrs. Sparsit does feel that Louisa has fallen - has eloped with Harthouse, but she lost her in the meeting, and therefore has lost her proof. She has no idea Louisa has gone to her father! Were you surprised at this? Do you have any idea at all how this will play out?

Gradgrind has finally focused his attention on his daughter. He seems to be owning up to the shortcomings of his educational system and the way he has raised his own children.
I think it's time to look into Dickens' biography and the realization of his own shortcomings as a father to his 12 children. Will do that tomorrow, or this evening after work.

I have always marveled at the differences in my own boys, all four products of the same set of parents, environment...yet overall, very similar.
I suspect that Tom and Louisa, having undergone the same parental expectations and experiences, differ somewhat in their ability to feel and express compassion toward others, as Jo points out, yet on they whole, they are very much alike...differing only by degrees. Neither know the meaning of love for example.......

Seriously, I was thinking about what might make a good "Play" on words when I realized that Dickens must have, at some time, thought through the same problem and deliberately elected NOT to select a "Word". In so doing he has succeeded in getting us, a hundred years later, to contemplate and even meditate on the point he was making.

Best

LJ

Best

LJ

- Is sacrifice a necessary part of love?
- If sacrifice is not present, is it not love? Does willingness to sacrifice count?
- Is pity love? kathleen reminds us that Louisa's love for Tom springs from pity....

Everything changes.....Allways.

Best

LJ

I came across this rather interesting item yesterday, which jogged my memory on Lowell. (Dickens visited America before writing Hard Times)

"Soon after returning to England, he entered the public debate on another variation on human misery, the working conditions for women and children in the coal-mining industry. In America, he had visited the model factories in Lowell, Massachusetts, impressed by the enlightened paternalism that provided housing, education, libraries(!), attractive working conditions, and cheerful dignity to the workers, all of whom were women. They worked willingly, combining a due sense of their position in the class structure with a sincere appreciation of what advantages this system provided....


In a long published letter, he wrote about the brutal mistreatment of children and women in the largely Tory-owned colliers. Mining and factory conditions in Britain seemed to him worse than any working conditions he had seen in America other that those imposed on slaves..."

>> MAIL From:<"jonkie@erols.com"@erols.com> <<< 501 SYNTAX ERROR IN PARAMETERS OR ARGUMENTS 501 <MSnitz@aol.com>... Data format error

These chapters are (I think) the lull before the storm, sort of a sweeping up before the last tumultous act.

Best

LJ

Best

LJ

When I went in and read some of kathleen's questions, I knew something was wrong! I came in with a new post to copy and paste...guess I'll do that, and then throw together an outline of the lost information...maybe in outline form. Probably a good idea to do that all the time, right?


Here's today's post:
LJ, don't you think it's too late for Papa Gradgrind to do anything to improve the damage done to Louisa and Thomas? I agree with Nellie, he has formed their characters from the cradle. They are both out of touch with their own natures. I admit that Louisa seems aware of her shortcomings, at least. But I don't think she is capable of changing the way she views herself and her response to others.


Sissy is a powerful "angel" though! She seems to have reached a cold, lonely place in Louisa's heart...perhaps Dickens will allow her to warm it for a happy ending? In real life though, I believe you reap what you sow. And you don't get another chance unless you plant a new garden..


Sissy becomes the angel of justice in this scene with Harthouse. Am I the only one struck with the relevance of her 'message' to today's situation concerning the president's fate? Nellie writes that "true contrition and reparation for wrongs is never out of date". Look at this scene again and tell me what you think! I couldn't get over the parallel! Maybe I've been watching too much TV! (kathleen, that's what I meant about who could play Sissy's role today? Chelsea?)

'the only reparation that remains with you, is to leave here immediately and finally. I am quite sure that you can mitigate in no other way the wrong and harm you have done. I am quite sure that it is the only compensation you have left it in your power to make. I do not say that it is much, or that it is enough; but it is something, and it is necessary. ...


'But do you know,' he asked, quite at a loss, 'the extent of what you ask? You probably are not aware that I am here on a public kind of business, preposterous enough in itself, but which I have gone in for, and sworn by, and am supposed to be devoted to in quite a desperate manner? 'Besides which,' said Mr Harthouse, taking a turn or two across the room, dubiously, 'it's so alarmingly absurd. It would make a man so ridiculous, after going in for these fellows, to back out in such an incomprehensible way.'

'I am quite sure,' repeated Sissy, 'that it is the only reparation in your power, sir. I am quite sure, or I would not have come here.'

Well???

Jo,(and kathleen, again, thanks for the "High Holy Office" explanation. So Harthouse was being severely tortured as he waited for Louisa!...does this mean he might really care for her? "..listening at the door for footsteps, and occasionally becoming rather hot when any steps approached that room" Love or lust??? Hey, there's another parallel with today's 'affair'! Same question.

kathleen, Dickens spoiled his own children's lives, but in a different way - he exercised such control over them as to make them totally dependent upon him, which made them think that he would always take care of them. There is much irony here. This was not his intent. Here are some highlights of their education:

Having seen the fecklessness of his parents repeated disastrously in the lives of two of his brothers, Dickens was early determined that the upbringing of his own children (especially of his seven sons) should avoid this inherited snare.

He was obsessed with order, inspecting the children's rooms and belongings...

More harmful than direct discipline was the darker side of his temperament...the continuous arrival of fresh babies upon the scene brought no relief from the nervous exacerbation that children impose at times upon all adults, especially upon adults whose creative work must be done at home.

Dickens died at the age of 58 and was never without dependent children in the house.

He was strict, but he was far from a fierce, or a gloomy, or an ungenerous father.

His affection for his children was strong, despite occasional resentments. When they were young he entered into their games with a fervour, particularly the elaborate parties of Christmas and Twelfth Night.

A lively and a firm regime of life at home - such was his scheme to avoid both the many painful, overdisciplined childhoods he describes in his novels or the disastrous results of indulgence he had seen in his brothers.

Of their education, particularly of the boys, he wrote, "I am strongly impressed with the conviction that the sons of a father whose capital can never be the inheritance of his children must hew out their own paths through the world by sheer hard work."

The boys were expected to make their way with manly independence as their father had, but they had no such inclinations.
As to the girls, Katey secured herself an education in art, and despite a rather sad first marriage to Wilkie Collin's invalid artist brother for which Dickens blamed himself, ("But for me, Katey would not have left home"), grew up to be a distinguished, very individual figure in Edwardian artistic circles.
But Mamey, the passionate worshipper of her father, went on into an eccentric, erratic, lonely spinsterhood.

Dickens was aware enough of his failures before he died to feel deep disappointment. Finally, he was too much for his children, as he had been too much for his wife.


Only two of his seven living sons attended his funeral...and his two daughters attended also.


Dickens will is a whole other story. He dictated his entire funeral proceedings and burial. More on that Later!

'the only reparation that remains with you, is to leave here immediately and finally. I am quite sure that you can mitigate in no other way the wrong and harm you have done. I am quite sure that it is the only compensation you have left it in your power to make. I do not say that it is much, or that it is enough; but it is something, and it is necessary. ...


'But do you know,' he asked, quite at a loss, 'the extent of what you ask? You probably are not aware that I am here on a public kind of business, preposterous enough in itself, but which I have gone in for, and sworn by, and am supposed to be devoted to in quite a desperate manner? 'Besides which,' said Mr Harthouse, taking a turn or two across the room, dubiously, 'it's so alarmingly absurd. It would make a man so ridiculous, after going in for these fellows, to back out in such an incomprehensible way.'

'I am quite sure,' repeated Sissy, 'that it is the only reparation in your power, sir. I am quite sure, or I would not have come here.'

It is also made clear that both Cissy and Lou suspect the whelp, when Cissy "Flushed and started, and Louisa put her finger to her lips"

C.D. is building the suspense and excitement. I thing chapter four might better be called "First Light" continuing the idea of night and day. Indeed the next chapter begins "Day and night...."

Best

LJ

Build me a son, O Lord, who will be strong enough to know when he is weak
And brave enough to face himself when he is afraid.
Who will be proud and undbending in honest defeat
Humble and gentle in victory."

Actually, I think that is part of the charm of 18th and 19th century novels and the movies based on them. Maybe I am a little nostalgic for the "pedestal" days!

Best

LJ

Are we agreed on Mrs. Sparsit's position and Bounderby's attitude toward her? Perhaps not.

JO almost feels sorry for her and thinks that Bounderby regards her as a nuisance now, as he bundles her off in the midst of her sneezing fit. (kathleen's wish for pneumonia last week!)

kathleen is laughing out loud as B. shakes her off and lets her fall to the floor.

I thought the whole situation delicious and laughed too...took satisfaction that she was getting hers! She was so certain she finally had concrete proof against Louisa that would restore her former position! As she reached for his collar while falling, she was reaching out for her old position...


Yes he let her fall, without catching her - as LJ would have done. BUT, the really telling behavior, I think - after he learned that Mrs. Sparsit had the story all wrong, and he, himself looked very foolish, he didn't turn on her, dismiss her outright in a rage. Oh no! At this point we see him extremely solicitous, as kathleen describes, "hustled her out of the house, and into the coach, being concerned enough to tell her how to treat her cold", then brings her up in his argument with Gradgrind as one of the "born ladies...belonging to FAMILIES who next to worship the ground I walk on!". RESTORED!!! Still important to his self-image as someone worthy of respect...even adoration! She retains her security, and a roof over her head!

So we see Bounderby back in his bachelor's life, but with no lady presiding at tea, and Mrs. Sparsit, warm and secure, but still festering with resentment towards him.

Will Dickens leave them in this state? What is he telling us of the mutual interdependence of the upper and middle classes in describing this odd relationship?

So, how is Louisa recovering durng the time spent at home with her father? We have seen the restorative powers from her association with Sissy.
I was a bit puzzled at the glance exchanged between Louisa and Sissy.
The moment Gradgrind asked about the real culprit, Louisa "put her finger to her lip", warning Sissy to be still. Had Louisa confided in Sissy her suspicions that her brother was the culprit, not Stephen?


Her father clearly understands the depths of Louisa's confusion and despair...and how his brand of education failed to prepare her to face difficulties in her adult life. Is he also aware of his son's inability to handle his own affairs?
He is truly depressed about Louisa. Instead of trying to do anything to change her state of mind or talk to her about his regrets, he leaves her to rest. But his depression is evident, bringing out Louisa's pity and compassion. She clearly wants to protect him from finding out about Tom. Will she be able to keep this from him?

The very fact that Louisa is able to compromise on the facts to recognize her feelings seems to indicate that mistakes made in her formative years can be reversed. Gradgrind himself notes a change in Louisa when he learns that at first she believed Stephen was implicated (knowing the fact that he was suspected), but now believes he is innocent because "his appearance and manner are honest", trusting her emotions and intuition. CD seems to be sending a hopeful message, as he allows Louisa to develop and recover...
Gradgrind has undergone a great change as well...perhaps too great to be believed?

Will she find out what she wants from life? I fear it is too late, but Dickens can do wonders in four chapters!

St Stephen by falling upon the stones (rather than being stoned) dies after exposing the whelp in a glorious melodramatic Victorian fashion, and we know that the whelp will also be exposed leaving only Cissy to be the Heroine of the story.

C.D., over and above his delightful literary language, his ability to picture with words all these varying scenes and his craftiness in developing the many interweaving themes, demontrates the reasons for his fame as a storyteller with purpose.

I hade no difficulty with the fortuitous meshes of time and circumstance. After all, it IS fiction.

Best

LJ

Best

LJ

Now what? Mrs. Sparsit "has fallen from her pinnacle of exultation into the Slough of Despond" and Bounderby is "shorn and forlorn, a ridiculous figure"

But he is still wealthy and Mrs. Sparsit has no means of support. Might they not still work something out? She'd still feel superior as she presided at tea; he would feel important having her there.
Why did Bounderby make up such a story? What did he gain from it? Admiration? What? And was Dickens telling us something here...(missed by me)?

It was a great, funny scene though, wasn't it? Louisa, Sissy and twenty-odd townspeople filing into Bounderby's dining room behind Mrs. Sparsit and her prize! What a stage production this would make! Especially when Bounderby makes his appearance with Gradgrind and the whelp!

The whelp looks very guilty as he shadows Bounderby...


This scene at the shaft was another dramatic scene, as 100-200 passers-by gather, then Sissy and her now-sobered helpers, Rachael and her group, the 'real help', the doctor, and finally, Gradgrind, Louisa, Bounderby and...the whelp!!!


So, Stephen doesn't actually tell Gradgrind and Louisa that it was Thomas who set him up, but rather charges both of them to clear his name, telling them only that Thomas spoke to him one night.
Wouldn't it be great if Thomas was so moved Stephen's death for which he was indirectly the cause - that he breaks down and confesses???


I must say I did not expect Stephen would die in such a manner...but in a way, he was stoned to death as the martyr Stephen for standing up for his principles...

I find Dickens unpredictable, don't you?

Best

LJ

Joan I'm sorry I didn't make myself clear, but I thought it was obvious.

Best

LJ

I thought that Stephen probably disliked Mrs. Pegler because of the family resemblance to Bounderby, JO. (Where did the Bounderby name come from? He's a Pegler, right? Another lie?) But now that Stephen has been deified, endowed with all sorts of mystical insights, we just may learn more about her to justify his intuitive dislike.

Have you noticed how Dickens has inserted something of himself into his characters - Bounderby, Gradgrind, Stephen...? Bounderby, so conscious of his inferior schooling and "Family, real family", that he can not take pride in how much he has achieved...to the point that he has deprived himself of family and friends, limiting himself to empty relationships based on lies...

Best

LJ

1. Lineage - blue blood


2. Wealth

3. Education


4. Achievement


Should religion and childhood nurture be included on this list?

Which one(s) determined Dickens' position in society?
Which one(s) determined Bounderby's, Mrs. Sparsit's, Gradgrind's and Harthouse's?

I had three main characters in mind: Stephen, Louisa and Sissy, just as kathleen does. I now feel that Sissy is emerging as the star of the show. She seems to personify Stephen's star as she becomes more of an angel - more loving, patient, understanding, forgiving than Rachael, who becomes more human in these chapters.


Rachael is "grateful for Sissy...gets hope and strength through her". She no longer suspects Louisa, since Sissy has managed to bring everyone together.
Where is Sissy's strength of character and understanding of human nature coming from? She lacks everything considered important at the time - lineage, wealth, family, education...
Is it because she had a positive, loving childhood experience with her father and the riding circus people? Is Dickens telling us it is because her childhood was one in which Fancy was nurtured and encouraged?
I wonder along with kathleen what Dickens will do for Sissy in the final chapters. My guess is that she will be reunited with her father!

Now of course, I learn that although it is short, it contains a lot! Not only the denouement, but the FUTURE of each of these characters.

I think we should save Chapter IX for later this week and just try to concentrate on the ending before getting into the future, OK?

I intend to put YOUR QUESTIONS up in the "Consideration box", as my mind went into overload after Chapter IX! I wonder how this last chapter was published way back then?

Looking forward to hearing from many of you this final week...lurkers too!

Best

LJ

There can be no contact between Sissy and Bounderby, for, as Edmund Wilson observes: "In his novels from beginning to end, Dickens is making the same point always: that to the English governing classes the people they govern are not real."

Perhaps this explains why the character of Sissy does not seem sufficiently developed to some of you...

Jeryn, that's an excellent point. Dickens himself, though not of the ruling class, was not familiar with the working class - did not really know the people he was defending (we can't count those months he spent as a boy in the blacking factory-though they left a strong impression on him). The individuals, Sissy, Rachael, and Stephen were not people he knew - pure Fancy.

Here's another thought - If the purpose of this novel was to entertain, then I think it would be important to "flesh out" the characters as much as possible to engage the reader in their concerns. If it was to be a political call for industrial/educational reform, the characters would be less important than the message.

Remember that Dickens was asked to write this novel for serialization to improve the sales of the failing Household Words. Fiction was the only way to improve sales. His intention was to entertain to sell copies. (I just scanned kathleen's post - and see that the serialization, the weekly deadlines presented another possible reason for some of the "fleshlessness".

In a Dickens' biography, I made this note, concerning his son's return home from Germany. Dickens had put him to work on Household Words and wrote this of Charley's work habits:

"He is not aspiring, or imaginative in his own behalf. With all the tenderer and better qualities which he inherits from his mother, he inherits an indescribable lassitude of character."

Is it possible that such concerns overwhelmed his imagination so that in the end, the characters became secondary to the message?


JO, I too was surprised that no one, not even Sissy or Sleary questioned Tom's escape! (from a carriage such as the one LJ describes?). I do believe that Dickens would have done the same for his own "whelp", however...

Hi:

I just finished Hard Times and continue to be impressed with CD's sense of humor, wisdom and satire. Mrs. Sparsit literally explodes and " lands on Bounderby's coat collar." Slackbridge, the union shop steward (must be a company union man) makes an eloquent damning and very funny speech against Blackpool. Mrs. Sparsit gets a bad cold and loses much of her dignity. She lands in the "slough of despond ," which is not as bad "as the plight of that remarkable man J. Bounderby of Coketown." She is also the one who drags the old woman before Bounderby and effects somewhat of a reconciliation in which both appear to be satisfied with the way he has treated his mother.

When Stephen is rescued from the pit he says that work should not murder people, but spare them for their wives and children. Lying there looking up at the stars he hopes "that the world will come together and understand each other".

(Another metaphor on Bounderby "he swells like a giant soap bubble without its beauty>)

I felt sorry for Louisa and Sissy for the primitive travel conditions they had to endure on their search for Tom. We are so much luckier today.

Sleary comes off as the thinking person he really is. Probably he didn't keep in touch with Sissy because he thought she would be better off without him. However, his making a slave of Tom seems appropriate punishment for him. I think the decision to send him to one of the Americas was a result of CD's possible dislike of us.

Bitzer turns out to be the exact product of his education He has been taught that the whole social system is built is built on self-preservation and everything from birth to death must be paid for across the counter.

Sleary's point of view wraps everything up to my satisfaction. We can't always be learning or working. There must be room for play and for doing the wise and best thing, not the worst. Though for me, learning is primary. It's always been a reason for going on to live, but not as the way it is defined by Grandgrind's school.

Altogether, it's one of my favorite novels. It's amazing that it was also appealing to readers of romantic novels of that period. Yet, I do find a few instances of melodrama. The happy ending must have also had a wide range of appeal.

Charlotte

And then kathleen adds that the Circus rescues Tom, "humanity rescuing a Hard Fact man", and there we have it!!!

An education which allows the development of the imagination, emotions, compassion, will strengthen, will fortify, will "rescue" when the FACTS of life threaten to overwhelm!

You know, I don't even think Dickens was championing education as much as he was the development of the imagination and compassion. Consider the uneducated circus people.... and Dickens himself had no 'proper' education!!! katheen finds Dickens in yet another character - Sleary!
He was a lobbyist for the education of the children of the overworked millworkers, though, thinking that some education was their only chance for their development.


The two things that disappointed me -

Tom's escape - the idea that he must avoid the consequences of the bank robbery, the idea that he would somehow be rehabilitated if he ran off by himself. Although I did smile at Charlotte's suggestion that Dickens considered exile in the Americas punishment enough, having spent some time in the U.S.! That is pretty funny!

Sissy's reunion with her father! So much had been made of Sissy's loyalty to his memory and her belief that he would return! And then nothing! I must reread the last chapter now to see if I overlooked something . That chapter was really packed and needs to be read more closely...

Isn't it fun to watch Dickens slip in and out of so many of his characters? How many can we name? Gradgrind, Bounderby, Sleary... I think he speaks through Stephen as he champions the rights of the poor and the oppressed in similar fashion...

Does he do this in his other works to such an extent?

Have you finished Chapter IX? I think it's time to examine what the "Future" holds for each of these characters, as they garner what was sown in childhood...

I was able to identify with the characters, it drew strong emotional responses from me, it made me "Think", it was essentially "Believable" within itself (Unlike "Jude").

I will leave deeper analysis to the experts, but I certainly enjoyed reading it.

Best

LJ

When I had finally read all of his books the first time, I preferred several others to this one, notably Bleak House, Great Expectations, David Copperfield, and A Tale of Two Cities.

I decided to dig around and see what I could find on the planning, writing and publication of the novels Jeryn and JO preferred: Bleak House, Great Expectations (my favorite) , David Copperfield and A Tale of Two Cities.

Boy did I unearth a lot of stuff! I'm going to risk carpel tunnel syndrome and start typing it, because some of it is simply too delicious to end up on the cutting room floor. I think I'll end up putting it up in separate posts in order not to lose you in a GIANT one!

There was great similarity in the way in which Dickens worked on all of his novels, the planning, his work habits, and the manner in which they were published. In his own words:

I never commit thoughts to paper, until I am obliged to write, being better able to keep them in order, on different shelves of my brain, ready ticketed and labelled to be brought out when I want them....I never edit, correct but very little and that invariably as I write"

Some of his novels appeared in serialization form in publications such as Hard Times appeared in Household Word. Others were published and sold in little green packets, one chapter at a time.

So they were all published one chapter at a time one way or another! Can you imagine writing like that? I know I'd decide half way through Chapter II, that I wanted to cut and paste something back into Chapter I!!!

Dickens remained content as long as he could work systematically and consistently, but he worked on Bleak House "discontinuously, abruptly and quickly". He was under great time pressure, some of the narrative was set very hurriedly.
(interesting aside: sometimes Dickens mouthed words in the mirror before he wrote them down - did this with Harold Skimpole to the point that he was Harold Skimpole. I wonder if he did the same with Sleary...with Stephen Blackpool?
I thought it interesting that at the end of each of his novels, Dickens always wrote "THE END" and underlined it twice as a way of putting the tale, the character behind him and moving on...)

He wanted to get ahead in order to travel. There were many demands on his time - social and public speaking dates, not to mention the birth and christening of his 10th child! He wrote in fits and starts right up to each deadline!

It was serialized weekly in Household Words and also released in monthly form and then a book volume. Dickens edited this weekly periodical for twenty years.

He found the writing of David Copperfield very difficult and the work went slowly. David mirrors Dickens as he searches desperately for his own identity and destiny. Is it coincidence that his initials were David's in reverse? This was the first novel in which Dickens consistently uses the first person singular, the first in which he sees himself as he breathes and moves. He suffered from mental exhaustion and became severely depressed.

He was unable to work in peace, pressed by many demands on his time, although he scheduled no readings or trips during the first year of writing. He became ill with persistent cough, ague, fever.

I just cannot resist including this little aside. When Dickens completed David Copperfield, he began a frantic round of social engagements...many dinners. Catherine Dickens published a compilation of recipes, What Shall We Have for Dinner? under the theatrical pseudonym of Lady Maria Clutterbuck! Don't you love it? It shows a sense of humor, as this was the very reason Dickens was so displeased with Catherine, the constant clutter and chaos in their home!

Great Expectations was another weekly serial published in Dickens' All the Year Round. When he began, he had the broad theme ready. He inserted himself into Pip, the anxious, guilt-ridden child, sensitive to the point of hysteria.
In a month, he completed the first four chapters - spontaneously, instinctively dispensed of his notes...
Worked at home undisturbed, routine of fierce work, followed by fierce exercise. Seemed cheerful during the writing of the first seven chapters.
Then he started driving himself to meet those deadlines...overworking, developing rheumatism, insomnia and the preliminary symptoms of stroke, which would eventually kill him.


Soooo what do you think? It sounds to me as if Hard Times was written under the same self-imposed frantic rush to make deadlines, no matter how difficult the writing. I am amazed at the number of other engagements and social activities he allowed into his life while attempting to meet these deadlines. It was his style. I don't think it really accounts for the problems we have noticed in Hard Times.

Jo, I want to come back and discuss that Bounderby question you bring up...but I used up all my MEMORY for now!

Seriously, he is a very important figure here. I am presently torn between nominating him or Gradgrind as the main character of this story, forget Louisa and Sissy, they were only bit players!
But will be back with my interpretation of those 25 Humbugs! What about the rest of you? I can be quiet for a while so the rest of you can post...

Keeping track of all his characters and plot permutations in his head reminds me of Mozart who reportedly composed his music in the same way... "as if taking dictation... " as Salari remarked in the movie, "Amadeus." Genuises both and both working hard for their living. Food for thought.

"A working woman, christened Rachael, after a long illness once again appearing at the ringing of the Factory bell, and passing to and fro at the set hours among the Coketown Hands; a woman of pensive beauty, always dressed in black, but sweet-tempered and serene, and even cheerful, who, of all the people in the place, alone appeared to have compassion on a degraded, drunken wretch of her own sex, who was sometimes seen in the town secretly begging of her, and crying to her..."

We still don't know how she got that way, of course; but it's clear her fate was to be forever a "drunken wretch." I do agree the characters in this novel are less intimately sketched and, as in this case, more like ships passing in the night.

Charlotte: thanks so much for the quote from EBB. Wonderfully poignant...

I was able to find a bit on Little Dorrit which is of some interest to us here, I think. It was serialized in Household Words as was Hard Times, after which it was published in two books, titled, Poverty and Riches. It is supposed to be Dickens' "single most ferocious onslaught against England, English society, its government , artists and even ordinary citizens." Although sales were high, and Dickens himself called the first installment a "brilliant triumph", he became overworked and deeply depressed during the writing of Poverty. He was despondent over public affairs and feared that national glory was on the decline.

Even when the Dorrits become rich they cannot escape their past. The only hope is to be found in 'endurance'

Sales of little Dorrit remained high, but critics regarded it as "a failure, a bad novel, a sign of Dickens' sad decline...."

Like Hard Times, it was an uncomfortable read...

MOST IMPRESSIVE !!!

Best

LJ

Thank you all, but I think our Charley Dickens played a big part by giving us so much to think about!

I'd like to squeeze in one more thought before the witching hour.....I just had two little witches come to the door trick or treating as I wrote that! Weird!

I read an article the other day I will include here which made me realize yet another underlying message in this novel.......(three witches and a ghost!!! No Monica Lewinskys yet, but it is only 5:30) First, here's the article:

"In the old 'cultures of honor', esteem usually attached to rank. The king deserved esteem no matter what he did. The implication for self-esteem is that "I deserve esteem no matter what I do." Respect, on the other hand, was earned by behaving in a certain way, and, also by accepting limits on one's behavior. Nobody out there needs to be convinced of how big the idea of self-esteem has become. This being America, there's a National Association for Self-Esteem whose purpose is "to fully integrate self-esteem into the fabric of American society so that every individual, no matter what their age or background, experiences personal worth and happiness. Self-esteem has entered the vocabulary in part as response by members of groups that have suffered oppression or discrimination to what they see as society's effort to keep them down, and diminish their sense of self-worth. To the extent that the self-esteem movement is about the insistence that all human being are worthy of respect -- from themselves and others, then the movement can be seen as a positive force.
My crankiness on the relative merit of self-respect over self- esteem is rooted in something else -- the arrogance that can go along with too much self-esteem.

As Martha Minow, a Harvard law professor and author of Not Only for Myself, explains it, the first definition of esteem "is about ranking, and if you add the 'self' to esteem, it's how you rank yourself." High self-esteem, in other words, can mean ranking yourself above everybody else.
That breeds arrogance. Respect, on the other hand, carries a notion of dignity in relationship to others.
Can you ever have too much self-respect?

Elisabeth Lasch-Quinn, a historian at Syracuse University, points to another aspect of self-esteem - it reflects the triumph of our therapeutic era. Therapy is aimed at making people "feel good, feel comfortable." That's why you want self-esteem. "But the drive for self-respect is completely opposite in every way," she says. "It means being uncomfortable because you're in struggle, trying to live up to a standard of excellence or remaining true to your most deeply held moral beliefs."

Following from this, there is a vigorous debate among educators over whether teaching self-esteem helps kids learn by making them believe they can and are personally worthy or whether, on the contrary, the process of learning, performing tasks well and treating others decently must come prior to self-esteem (or, as I'd prefer, self-respect).

Lasch-Quinn suggests that if you want to trace the trajectory of ideas in American education, you could contrast the 19th century's emphasis on "character building" with the late-20th-century focus on self-esteem.

Minow's interest in this subject was inspired by the much-cited thought of the first-century sage Hillel: "If I am not for myself, who will be? If I am only for myself, who am I? If not now, when?" Of course we should have respect and, if you must, some esteem for ourselves. But in my gut, I fear that if we spend a few more decades promoting self-esteem, we might convince ourselves to forget that there's anyone of value out there -- other than ourselves. "We can't have respect for ourselves if we're only for ourselves," Minow says. "We become egotistical selfish beasts." To feel that way would lower our self-esteem -- and our self-respect, too.

...if we spend a few more decades promoting self-esteem, we might convince ourselves to forget that there's anyone of value out there -- other than ourselves.

OK, LJ, unless there is a last minute voting surge, it looks as if the Green Knight has it! What fun!!! Til then,

Joan